Sgt Norman Jackson VC

[Antipodean Andy]

Old news but an amazing story.

VC auction highlights airman's heroic feat - World - www.theage.com.au

A Victoria Cross awarded to a World War II airman who crawled on to the wing of a bomber at 22,000 feet to put out a fire is to be auctioned in London.

"It is the most incredible Victoria Cross story I have ever heard," said John Hayward, medal consultant at Spink, where Sergeant Norman Jackson's medal will be auctioned on April 30. Jackson died in 1994, at 74, and the medals are being sold after the death of his widow, Alma. They are expected to fetch between £120,000 ($A287,000) and £140,000.

Jackson did not have to be aboard Lancaster ME669 when it took off for Germany on April 26, 1944. At 25, he had completed 30 missions but agreed to stay because his crew had done 29.

After bombing near Nuremberg, they turned for home but were attacked by a fighter that set an engine ablaze. Jackson volunteered to climb out with an extinguisher as the Lancaster flew at 22,000 feet and 320 km/h. The plan was to release his parachute inside the aircraft and have two crew pay out the cords.

Clinging with one hand, he subdued the flames with the extinguisher in the other, but the fighter resumed fire and Jackson was hit in the legs and back. He was now being dragged along on his parachute behind the Lancaster. He broke free, but realised the fire had spread to his parachute. He extinguished the smouldering cords by gripping them with his hands.

The canopy had holes burnt in it and Jackson was plunging to earth, but bushes broke his fall. His ankles were broken, hands and face badly burned and he had shrapnel in his back and legs, but he was alive.

The aircraft subsequently crashed and the full story did not emerge until other surviving crew members were released from captivity at war's end.

"If he went to a reunion he would never put his medals on until he got inside the building," David Jackson, one of his seven children, said this week. "He didn't think he had done anything out of the ordinary."

[Antipodean Andy]

The VC citation:

Gazette Website: PDF Navigator

[Kyt]

I remember reading about Jackson as a kid in a comic. Everytime I read about air VCs that image of him on the wing always pops up